Last night in the USA and it seems only a few days ago that I was sitting in this same Motel 6 in Aurora wondering what I had let myself in for. 5000 miles later and Im tired, confused and looking forward to seeing a new country. First I have a couple of days activities to catch up on.
I think I need to go back to Monday when I visited the Noble Foundation at Ardmore Oklahoma. I had checked them out a little before I left home but didnt really have a true feel for what they do. Their history is amazing but Im not going to go into that here, go a check out their website for yourself to find out more.
They cover a radius within 100 miles of Ardmore providing management advice and research in livestock and crop production. It is an amazing organisation and provides a fantastic service to its co-operators. I think I would move here just to benefit from their services! I had some great discussions about the adoption of EPD's and how to use them for bull selection finding out about the principles and processes the NF use with their co-operators. they have a novel approach which I will tell you about some time! I also toured their facilities and visited one of their ranches where they graze cattle, have handling facilities and try out various grassland management systems.
We also looked through some data that they had collected using EPD's and MAS. This is the type of data I have been looking for but didnt really come up with firm answers like I was looking for but did raise some more questions surprisingly enough! A big thank-you to everyone there and for the Mexican lunch! Tuesday was the day I hadnt been looking forward to. From Norman OK to Fort Collins CO is about 740 miles, a journey that took me almost 13 hours allowing time for food, fuel and coffee stops. That probably 3 times around NI and certainely a lot more than you could do at home in a straight line without getting your feet wet. I travelled north to Salina KS and then west to Denver before turning North to Fort Collins, the home of Colorado State University. The country side along the route was very different, from dense woodland in OK, to the plains through Kansas and the rolling hills and vast areas of grassland in Colorado. I saw corn, soya beans, sunflowers, cotton, sugar beet and winter wheat seedlings and lots of grass along the way. I dont think I mentioned that OK is the stocker capital of the USA with millions of calves coming from across the US to there to graze wheat pastures for the winter, many of which are then combined the following year.
I think I need to go back to Monday when I visited the Noble Foundation at Ardmore Oklahoma. I had checked them out a little before I left home but didnt really have a true feel for what they do. Their history is amazing but Im not going to go into that here, go a check out their website for yourself to find out more.
They cover a radius within 100 miles of Ardmore providing management advice and research in livestock and crop production. It is an amazing organisation and provides a fantastic service to its co-operators. I think I would move here just to benefit from their services! I had some great discussions about the adoption of EPD's and how to use them for bull selection finding out about the principles and processes the NF use with their co-operators. they have a novel approach which I will tell you about some time! I also toured their facilities and visited one of their ranches where they graze cattle, have handling facilities and try out various grassland management systems.We also looked through some data that they had collected using EPD's and MAS. This is the type of data I have been looking for but didnt really come up with firm answers like I was looking for but did raise some more questions surprisingly enough! A big thank-you to everyone there and for the Mexican lunch! Tuesday was the day I hadnt been looking forward to. From Norman OK to Fort Collins CO is about 740 miles, a journey that took me almost 13 hours allowing time for food, fuel and coffee stops. That probably 3 times around NI and certainely a lot more than you could do at home in a straight line without getting your feet wet. I travelled north to Salina KS and then west to Denver before turning North to Fort Collins, the home of Colorado State University. The country side along the route was very different, from dense woodland in OK, to the plains through Kansas and the rolling hills and vast areas of grassland in Colorado. I saw corn, soya beans, sunflowers, cotton, sugar beet and winter wheat seedlings and lots of grass along the way. I dont think I mentioned that OK is the stocker capital of the USA with millions of calves coming from across the US to there to graze wheat pastures for the winter, many of which are then combined the following year.
I visited Dr Enns at CSU and found out a bit about their research into disease susceptability in cattle using MAS. This is really exciting and holds a lot of possibilities but its early days and as yet there are no results to look at. We talked a lot about other areas of work the university specialises in and the courses they offer. I wish I'd had more time to spend here but as every else I'm on a schedule. I do have lots of ideas from this and I'm starting to make a bit more sense out of all this information Im harvesting.
Today I was at the NCBA in Denver. Quick tip- dont mess about in morning traffic in Denver. Driving in this city is like naural selection, only the fittest survive, the rest die out on the hard shoulder. Indicators are optional and dont expect anyone to slow down as you pull out or respect the car length you have left in front. If theres a hole they will fill it, even at 80mph!
The NCBA is a fascinating organisation. They wear many hats from policy development, lobying, human nutritional, recipe development, media relations, marketing and promotion, food safety, quality assurance, producer and consumer education and the list goes on. I had the opportunity to find out about their nutrition, QA, food safety and general operations as well as some of the issues affecting US beef producion. Dont be fooled anybody in the UK. We arent the only ones with issues and problems or a government that isnt food producer friendly.
Last visit was to Leachman of Colorado to find out about their cattle operation and the Stabilizer composite they have developed. This is the most well known composite herd around with many cattle in the UK having originated from semen or embryos from here. Its a really smart and innovative operation with some very clearly defined principles and goals. It would be fun to be a student here as you could learn a vast amount about breeding here, more than many so called breeders have forgotten.
Im getting tired typing and need something to eat so Im off for now. Hopefully I will get some final thoughts up tomorrow.
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